Chapter 172

I woke up a bit after 8. I couldn’t find the teapot in my friends’ messy kitchen so I used a French press coffee pot to make myself some jasmine tea. The Metal Minded podcast was live, I listened to the second half, an interview with a death metaller from a band called Disembodiement. Then I had a bit of a chat with the guys on Zoom, always a good laugh to be had. My late breakfast was pan-fried leftover dumplings and scrambled eggs.

The girlfriend forwarded me a message that her father (the title holder of the car) got, I went through a red light on the first day of my trip and Big Brother caught me with one of his 1 000 000 000 000 traffic cameras. Fuck!!! I think I remember how it happened, I was following a big freight truck from too close and couldn’t see the traffic light. 6 points gone out of 12, I’ll be walking on egg shells for the rest of the trip.

I rode a rent-a-bike to the BJJ gym. They have a lesson at 12:30 so might as well go instead of idling. Just as it was about to start, I got startled seeing that none other than my gym nemesis, the British white belt from my home gym, just walked in. He was just as surprised, he thought I was out camping deep in the woods, and I knew he was moving to Nanjing but only at the end of the summer. He was in town to scout out apartments so he checked out the gym. The lesson was good, some nogi stuff, not the pyjama fighting I’m used to. There are overlaps obviously, but as I figured out rolling with different partners at the end of the class, the biggest difference is how slippery it gets. I sparred with my old nemesis, with another spazzy newcomer, and with a recently minted brown belt against whom I could do absolutely nothing. A good time was had by all.

I went back home, had a victory beer, showered, changed, and soon went back out, with the dog this time. I got another rent-a-bike and he jogged happily alongside, and we went to visit my old friend, the guy who came to my city for the big hash, and whom I visited last week at the Hefei Hilton. His wife and kid are in good ol’ Hefei so he only spends Monday to Thursday in Nanjing for work, residing in a bare apartment in a ghetto-ass neighborhood.  We sat around drinking whisky for a bit then went for a walk through a really cool park near his place, with remnants of the imposing city wall, pagodas, and impressive views over the nonsensically big city.

We caught a taxi and went all the way to a southwestern suburb, where the Venezuelan invited us all to a restaurant that does a 99-yuan all-you-can-eat taco buffet. What’s there not to love?! A multiethnic crew of old and new friends assembled and we attacked the buffet, filling our plates with tacos of the hard and the soft variety, drinking beers and margs. One of my old friends had just arrived, a Belarusian from Jinan who is now the highest ranking member of our old capoeira group, he was supposed to spend some time in Shanghai with his girlfriend but sent us an ominous text saying “his trip isn’t going well” so he just hopped on the bullet train west and came to see his homies. Seems like we boosted his morale successfully enough.

After a long cab ride back to the pad, we sat on the couch and watched the new Rick and Morty episode, which just dropped. It was excellent. Life is always a teeny bit better on the rare occasions, every two or three years, when a new RnM season is underway.